A few days ago, we published a screenshots gallery of Microsoft Windows 8 RTM. Just for the record, we produced all of the screenshots ourselves. But apparently posting screenshots of Microsoft's software is considered a copyright infringement... or at least that's what Microsoft claims. A few hours ago, we received the following e-mail from Google:

"Hello,

Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of your materials allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. The URLs of the allegedly infringing materials may be found at the end of this message. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found at http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=515551.

Please note that it may take several weeks for the notice to be posted on the above page.

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our Google Search results the materials that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1114905 for the process that Google requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

If you feel that your sites or pages were mistakenly removed due to a DMCA request filed against you, or you have taken the necessary steps to remove the infringing content, Google can reinstate these materials into its search results upon receipt of either a DMCA Counter Notification form, or a Content Removed form.

To request reinstatement for a URL where the allegedly infringing content is still available, please fill out our DMCA Counter Notification form:

Update #3: Mark Lamb, Senior PR Manager at Microsoft, has given us a response on this story. "Microsoft is committed to ensuring that copyright is respected online. To protect our intellectual property, Microsoft's anti-piracy programs target links to infringing copies of our software; we do not target commentary. We take reports of inaccurate DMCA notices seriously, and will investigate disputed notices upon receipt. If the sites do not contain links to infringing copies of our software, we will contact Google about reinstating the search results."

wow...that's low, Im betting it has nothing to do with the screenshots but rather with the negativity surrounding windows 8 in the thread comments, they are doing damage control to try and prevent the truth from affecting their upcoming launch.

I mean, why else would they care that you posted some screenshots? You can find them all over the web, hell you can just google images "windows 8" and see tons of them.

As if my opinion of Microsoft couldnt get any lower, keep diggin M$, keep digging.

__________________ The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.